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A review by indahmarwan
If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran by Carla Power
4.0
Inside the book, Carla Power begins a yearlong journey with Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi on the highly debated topics in the Quran. Carla Power coming from a secular American journalist background and Sheikh Akram with his madrasa training recognize that the Quran teaches peace instead of mass murder, respect for women and not oppression. Two different worldviews are challenged through debates and clarification of controversial verses in various occasions: tea time, family gatherings and at packed Cambridge University lecture halls. They travel from London to Mecca and to India to discovered enlightening perspectives, debunking long-held myths and uncovers anxious connections between the worlds.
To be honest, this book took me the longest to finish. I put it off several times before I managed to finish the last couple of weeks. I found the conversations in the book are basic yet fundamental knowledge of Islam that I know of. But I urged myself to pick up the book again because they were refreshing somehow. The friendship is indeed unlikely but unique and both Carla and Sheikh Akram are very engaging in every discussions they have. I love how Carla Power takes a step back of reflection as Sheikh Akram explains the Quran’s message and meaning topics like peace and violence, gender and veiling, religious pluralism and tolerance. Her background of growing up in Egypt and seeing Muslim community I believe has helped Carla Power to have this kind of interfaith understanding. This book is profound to the interfaith dialogue between Islam and the West.
To be honest, this book took me the longest to finish. I put it off several times before I managed to finish the last couple of weeks. I found the conversations in the book are basic yet fundamental knowledge of Islam that I know of. But I urged myself to pick up the book again because they were refreshing somehow. The friendship is indeed unlikely but unique and both Carla and Sheikh Akram are very engaging in every discussions they have. I love how Carla Power takes a step back of reflection as Sheikh Akram explains the Quran’s message and meaning topics like peace and violence, gender and veiling, religious pluralism and tolerance. Her background of growing up in Egypt and seeing Muslim community I believe has helped Carla Power to have this kind of interfaith understanding. This book is profound to the interfaith dialogue between Islam and the West.